


The End of the Woods

by Sed



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Horror, Spooky, Stranded, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27287380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed
Summary: It is under the small, dim, summer starI know not who these mute folk areWho share the unlit place with me—Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 19
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

Fall had come late to Tiragarde, finally stumbling into the sound on the end of a torrential rain that seemed to wash the green from the trees. Mathias Shaw would never openly claim to have a favorite time of year, nor would anyone expect it of him. But if he had to pick, if pressed to name the months when he felt most at ease, most comfortable in himself, it was when the leaves changed and the air became crisp. It felt clean, energizing. Perhaps it was only the sense of escape from the oppressive heat and humidity of summer, but he thought it might be something more than that. The feeling lingered even here, in Boralus, where it never really got so hot that he couldn’t stand to be in his own skin.

The deck of the _Wind’s Redemption_ was finally drying out, and the fog that had settled over the area was thinning. The sky was by no means clear, but the clouds overhead were clean; no sign of rain on the horizon, despite the gray light that filtered down to the harbor. It was the perfect weather for Hallow’s End celebrations, already in full swing, and going strong throughout the city.

“Spymaster.”

Shaw set his eyes upon the source of the address: a young woman he didn’t know, whose clothing proclaimed her one of the locals, or else an adventurer who had made an effort to blend in. More and more that seemed to be happening lately. Scores of men and women had come to Kul Tiras following the renewal of friendly relations, and many seemed to find the atmosphere suited them just fine. It was hardly worth noting most times, but now? He didn’t care much for unexpected contact from unknown sources. He’d had enough of that in recent months.

“Speak your mind,” he said.

“An urgent message, Spymaster.”

“Major Flintshale takes all incoming messages—”

“For you, sir. My orders,” she insisted.

He eyed her coolly, waiting to see if she would flinch under his practiced stare. Most “spies” weren’t really spies at all, just pawns. Commodities to be moved about at the whim of the player. Most were just as disposable, too. As such, it often wasn’t worth the time to train them in proper applications of more creative subtlety. If she was lying, he would know it, and he would handle her.

But her mouth remained set in a grim line, the corners pulled tight into her cheeks as she held the message—a wrinkled, dirt-stained piece of parchment—in her hand. Her dark eyes didn’t waver as they stared into his own.

He reached out and took the message from her. “If that’s all,” he said, dismissing her. She shouldn’t have made it up the gangplank in the first place. He would have to speak to the officer on duty.

The parchment was in the same sorry shape inside as out. A smear across the center made it difficult to read what appeared to be hastily scrawled script. A few words jumped out at him right away:

_need your help. If you can’t_

He tried to brush the dirt from the parchment, finding it was dried fast. When he peered closer he could make out a little more of what had been written.

_Drustvar._

_in the woods, and got myself in some trouble._

But perhaps most curious, and potentially worrying, was the signature. It was half-visible beneath the smudge of a dark thumbprint:

_Flynn_

It was only when he paused to wonder why Flynn Fairwind was asking for _his_ help that Shaw registered the true nature of the dark substance that had been smeared upon the parchment. It definitely wasn’t dirt.

Captain Fairwind—hardly even a captain at all, really—was an Alliance… asset. They had needed his help some months back to break into the Zandalari treasury and appropriate an artifact of significant importance. Shaw had tolerated him then, and grudgingly appreciated his skills, inasmuch as he was able. When the man shut his mouth for a few seconds he was even somewhat tolerable. But they weren’t what he would call friends. Barely even acquaintances, actually. So why had he sent Shaw an urgent message asking for help?

“Is something wrong, Master Shaw?” Shandris Feathermoon asked. She was half-sitting on the edge of the map table beside him. Her glowing eyes fell upon the bloodstained message in his hands and she shot him a curious look.

Whatever had happened to Flynn Fairwind, he’d reached out to someone he thought he could trust. An incredibly foolish choice, of course, given what Shaw did for a living. Trusting a spy on either side of any conflict was a gamble. Then again, the man _was_ a pirate, at least at some point in his recent past, and what else did pirates do but take risks?

“It’s nothing,” he lied, folding the scrap of parchment and tucking it into his belt. He pushed off from the mast and crossed the deck to where Wyrmbane was dressing down an unfortunate sergeant.

When he was finished, Wyrmbane dismissed the soldier with a grimace and promptly turned to Shaw. “Whatever it was in that message, whatever you need, I can only spare you three days.” He shook his head. “And none of my men.”

Shaw had to fight to keep the smirk from his face. He often thought he should give Halford Wyrmbane more credit, and it seemed he was right. “Three days will be more than enough.”

He didn’t need any help tracking down Flynn Fairwind and dragging him back to Boralus by the scruff. Whatever trouble the man had gotten himself into, and even Shaw had to admit it could be quite a bit, given the subject, it couldn’t be so bad that he needed anything more than a temporary keeper. He wouldn’t have been able to send a message in the first place if it were any worse than that.

Still, the blood on the parchment, the quick, uneven scratches of black ink; something _had_ gone wrong. And it wouldn’t do for the Alliance to lose one of their local assets.

That was what he told himself when he found his steps carrying him from the ship a little faster than they might have on any other day.

  
Drustvar was not much at all like Tiragarde Sound, despite its relative proximity. The leaves here were already a deep, rich wash of red and gold, brown, and purple in some places. Shaw had disembarked from the inaptly named _ferry_ to find himself standing on a short dock, facing a single, small hut. No one waited for him on his arrival, and there didn’t seem to be a dockmaster around. Gulls hurled ringing laughter at one another on the shore to either side of him, and the cold, wet stench of dead fish assaulted his senses.

His brief inquiries had led him to the eastern side of the island, where the land was flat enough to be tilled and farmed before sharply rising into slopes that fed into the mountain peaks above. The entire land seemed to be littered with patches of dense forest despite being lived and worked for centuries. With luck, and a little too much coin for his liking, he had managed to trace Fairwind’s last known location to the woods west of where he was currently standing. Assuming half a day for the message to have left the captain’s hands and traveled northeast to Boralus, and another half-day for Shaw to retrace Fairwind’s movements, he was at least twenty-four hours behind. Realistically speaking, the lead Fairwind had on him was probably closer to thirty-six. Either way it was recent enough to find a trail and track down the wayward, possibly-injured pirate.

It was late afternoon by the time he passed the empty farmsteads and reached what he took to be the edge of the woods. Within the trees an unnerving darkness had already settled, well ahead of the sinking sun, and Shaw frowned to himself. He wasn’t bothered by darkness, nor was he afraid of anything that might dwell within it. Typically speaking, _he_ was the most dangerous creature for miles in any direction. But he had been duly warned about Drustvar’s strange atmosphere, and he had read the mission reports from those sent to deal with the threats posed by the many elements that called the land their home.

If he allowed himself to be even a little bit unnerved, it was only out of respect for what he knew might lay ahead. No one else had to know of the shiver that rolled down his spine as he crossed the line of trees and entered the woods.

  
Six hours of first walking, then more labored hiking, had not turned up even a trace of Fairwind, or where he might have gone. Shaw was starting to wonder if he hadn’t been duped. But why would anyone bother to organize such an elaborate ruse, just to send him to get lost in the woods? If it were a trap, surely the perpetrators would have sprung it by now. And really, why use Flynn Fairwind as the bait? Shaw had hardly even thought of the man in the months since their mission. A passing consideration here or there, perhaps. Maybe he’d watched him as he sauntered down the dock, headed for his ship to drag some hapless adventurer on a dubious mission he claimed was for the war effort.

If Fairwind had been in his thoughts at all, it was only to reminisce on how aggravating he had been. The way his shoulder had bumped Shaw’s while they crept through the vault. His constant running commentary on every single aspect of their mission. His ridiculous and often inappropriate sense of humor. His easy laugh.

Shaw grimaced and pulled himself up and over a rocky patch of wooded hillside. It hadn’t escaped his notice that he had yet to so much as hear a bird, or catch a squirrel bounding between the tree trunks. The forest around him was eerily silent on all accounts. Not even a breeze rustled the branches overhead. The only sound at all seemed to be his own slightly labored breath, and the constant thud of his heartbeat. If Fairwind wasn’t already lying prone across death’s door, he might just haul the man there himself.

Hours seemed to crawl by one uncomfortable minute at a time. Shaw thought he must be nearing the other end of the forest, but there was no sign of that being the case. The trees weren’t thinning, and the darkness wasn’t getting any less oppressive. He couldn’t see the stars overhead through the leaves, not even when he looked for them, and the land had barely changed apart from a slight increase in the slope and a greater presence of large rocks and scattered talus.

He idly listened to the clicking chatter of some small creature in the brush as he descended into a hollow formed by two fallen trees. It only made sense to check; Fairwind might have crawled inside to seek shelter from the cold. If he was injured, he wouldn’t be able to call out for help.

His boots had only just hit the dirt in the lowest part of the hollow when a well-honed instinct told him to freeze. He pushed himself into the shadow of the exposed roots as the chatter around him grew in both volume and pitch, until he was forced to cover his ears to keep the sound from crawling into his skull. He remembered that there hadn’t been any birdsong as he picked his way through the woods, no mournful calls, and he tried to remember when the sound had started. Why hadn’t he noticed that it did? The sudden appearance of sound, any sound, was something he should have noted. Instead he had blithely crawled on through the darkness and ignored that something was _in there with him_.

All at once the noise stopped. The forest grew unnaturally silent again. Strange that the lack of sound was almost preferable. Shaw leaned out from the overhang created by the roots just as a terrible groaning sound, like wrenching, splitting wood, resounded throughout the forest around him.

Like before, it was over quickly, though this time the echo of it remained until it too faded into the blackness around him. Shaw waited to the count of thirty before he stepped away from the overhang of dead roots and looked around. Whatever it was, it had passed.

There was no sign of Fairwind in the hollow, so Shaw pulled himself up out of the shallow pit and stood to brush the loose dirt from his armor. He lifted his head and found himself face-to-face with a man-shaped creature. It watched him silently, unmoving, not even breathing as far as the spymaster could tell. He slowly reached for his daggers; whatever it was—and that was hard enough to tell—he felt reasonably certain he could take it. The darkness seemed to swallow most of its lines, hiding the actual shape of the thing, but what he could see suggested it wasn’t much heavier, and likely not much stronger, than he was.

He moved into a crouch, daggers in hand, the deadly blades pointed toward his elbows. The creature moved as well, mirroring his stance.

“What in blazes are you doing out here?” he heard a familiar voice ask. A hand came down on his shoulder, and Shaw whirled in place, blades flying perilously close to Flynn Fairwind’s throat before he realized who it was standing behind him.

“Whoa, mate! I’d like to keep things roughly as they are, if you don’t mind!” Fairwind complained.

Heart pumping fast, Shaw turned back to look for the creature. It was gone.

“Do you often come stomping out to the woods to assault people?” Fairwind asked. “Silly question, of course you do. But what brings you to _my_ neck of the woods? Strange to mean that so literally.”

“Did you see that?” Shaw asked. He blinked. “Where have you been?” He sheathed his daggers and reached for Fairwind’s coat. When he pulled it open he found no bloodstains, no signs of any injury whatsoever. “Where were you wounded?”

“Shaw? Are you alright, mate? I’m not wounded anywhere—aha!—that tickles, you know!” He pried Shaw’s hands from him and put a little more space between them. “What’s got you out here raving about my whereabouts?”

“Your message.” Shaw reached into his belt for the scrap of parchment.

It was gone.

“I think I’d know of any message. Well, alright, that’s not necessarily true. You wouldn’t believe the sort of mischief I can get up to when I’ve had a few pints in me. Love letters are the least of it.”

“No, damn it,” Shaw cursed. “You sent a message to Boralus. The messenger was a girl with—”

What had she looked like? He tried to recall, but it was as if his thoughts slid from the memory like oil on water. A vague, indistinct shape took their place, the lines blurred, impossible to determine their true form…

Shaw could feel the insistent hammer of his pulse in his temple, and he saw Fairwind speaking, but all the sound seemed to disappear into the heavy silence of the forest. His memory was sharp, there wasn’t much he would—or could—forget. But no matter how hard he tried to recall the girl who had brought him the message, he could only see that same indistinct shape.

“There was a girl,” he muttered. “And a—a man, I think.” His eyes tracked the ground around them, searching for footprints. There were none. Not even their own. When he looked up, Fairwind was peering at him.

“Are you sure you’re not drunk?”

“I’m not drunk, Fairwind!” He had purposely left footprints. Every twenty steps he’d twisted his heel to leave a mark. A simple trail he could follow back out of the forest once he found Fairwind. The last one had been just before he jumped down into the hollow. “Where have you been? Why did I get an urgent message from you, asking for my help?”

“I’ve no idea, friend. I never sent any message.” He held up a hand. “That I’m aware of, as we’ve covered.”

“How long have you been out here?”

Fairwind hummed thoughtfully and stroked the point of hair on his chin. Not nearly so neat, nor so deliberate as Shaw’s, but similar enough that watching it made Shaw want to scratch his own chin. “Eight, nine hours, I reckon,” Fairwind said. “Give or take. Why? What’s got you so riled up?”

“What _time_ was it when you entered these woods?”

“You’re asking a lot of a man like me to expect an accurate accounting of the hour, but let’s see…” He crossed his arms, frowning. “Just after dawn, as I recall.”

Shaw waited for some spark of recognition, but Fairwind only watched him expectantly. “Dawn would put it at early afternoon, Captain. Do you think this looks like early afternoon?” He held out his hands and gestured to the pitch black forest around them. “Does this seem normal to you?”

“Well, normal’s a fairly relative state for me, all things considered. But now that you mention it, I have been wandering in the dark for an awfully long time.”

“According to your message you’ve been here since at least the day before yesterday,” Shaw said.

“No that… That can’t be right.” Fairwind stroked his chin again. It was starting to become distracting. “Takes a bit for me to start losing days. What did this message say, exactly?”

“What I could read of it indicated that you were in Drustvar, in the woods, and you had gotten yourself into trouble,” Shaw told him. That was all he had ever been able to decipher through the dried blood that soaked parts of the single page. Blood that didn’t appear to have been Fairwind’s after all.

“Sounds like me, alright. Still.” Fairwind put his hands to his chest and patted himself down all the way to his groin. “Hale and hearty as ever. You thought I was wounded?”

“The message was covered in blood. Did you fight someone?” Or _something?_

Fairwind shook his head. “Not recently. I’m a lover, as I believe I’ve mentioned in the past. If not, I can cite several examples to prove it. Or simply provide a demonstration.”

“Get your head in the game, Fairwind, this is no time for jokes,” Shaw snapped. “Something is going on here.”

“Alright, alright, consider me in the game.” Fairwind shrugged. “What can I do?”

The unfortunate truth of it was that Shaw had no idea. If Fairwind had been wandering the woods since dawn, whichever dawn it might have been, then he was just as lost as Shaw. At least now they were lost together; having someone to watch his back could prove critical.

“It’s getting late. We should wait for daylight to go any further,” he said. “It’s bad enough out here without one of us breaking a leg on an exposed tree root.”

“Can’t say I fancy sleeping in the woods.”

“We’ll be sleeping in there.” Shaw pointed, and watched as Fairwind’s eyes followed his arm down to the hollow between the two fallen trees. “Yes, I’m serious,” he added when Fairwind started to look unhappy with the arrangement.

“Wouldn’t you feel better up in a tree? I’ve slept in a crow’s nest before—the sort on a ship, mind, not the real thing. Well…”

While Fairwind prattled on, recounting exploits no doubt as fictional in some ways as they were alarmingly real in others, Shaw recalled the sound he had heard while he was pressed beneath the overhang. The groan that seemed to rattle through his chest and down into his very soul. It had sounded like lumber being split by a gronn. He suppressed a shudder at the memory. “No trees,” he said. “You first.”

Despite his complaints, which continued throughout the process, Fairwind did as he was told. He climbed down the embankment created by the uprooted trees and slid the rest of the way into the soft dirt within the hollow. “Cozy,” he said. “Reminds me of the time I was made to dig my own grave.”

The comparison was too apt for Shaw’s tastes, and he grimaced. Fairwind misread his expression, however, adding, “Don’t worry, I was able to talk my way out of it.”

“Clearly.” Shaw hopped down and landed in a crouch beside the pirate. “We can’t risk a fire.”

Rolling his eyes, Fairwind muttered, “Wouldn’t dream of it. Shivering in the cold is what I do best, you know.”

“It’s warmth or your life, Captain,” Shaw informed him matter-of-factly.

“You make it sound as though one isn’t rather crucial to the other.”

  
Shaw didn’t sleep that night, if it could be called a night at all. He lay in the dirt beside Fairwind, head pillowed on his folded arm, listening. The forest was still unnervingly silent, the darkness still vast and oppressive. The only sound at all was Fairwind’s steady breathing behind him, and loath as he was to admit it, Shaw took comfort in that. He listened to it all throughout the night, a fear he wouldn’t admit even to himself crawling its way up his spine; a fear that the sound would suddenly stop, just as all the others had after entering the woods.

He shivered at the thought of that terrible rush of chittering, whispering sound that had seemed to scrape at the inside of his skull before simply disappearing altogether. It didn’t make any sense. Where in the _hell_ were they?

Between the Scourge, shadow magic, the machinations of Old Gods, and good old fashioned necromancy, Shaw had seen things in his lifetime that he was not likely to forget. But none of it— _none of it_ had ever shaken him like these woods, or left him feeling as though he had to think to make himself breathe properly. He was not a man given to fear, irrational or otherwise, and even his time spent in the clutches of the Legion had never dulled his certainty that he would escape and survive. Whatever that survival looked like. Now… Now he wasn’t certain about anything, and that was a feeling so alien, so alarming, that he couldn’t seem to talk himself past it.

He tried to remember how long it had been since he entered the woods; he’d told Fairwind some number of hours, remembered discussing with him what time of day it _should_ be, but the knowledge felt like sand between his fingers now. It slipped away when he tried to focus on it, and left him frowning into the darkness. He had only just arrived, hadn’t he?

The sound of footsteps beyond the small hollow had him on alert and reaching for a blade before he even discerned their direction. He listened, counting the number of steps, cataloguing each one and measuring it against knowledge so old in his mind that it might as well be instinct. The uneven gait, the way twigs snapped and the interval between one step and the next—they all assessed things that sight alone wouldn’t tell him, and he listened to each one. Listened because they were the only sound in the forest as far as he could tell.

The sudden truth of that struck him like ice in his veins. He refocused on the sound of Fairwind’s breathing, and realized it had gone silent.

“ _Fairwind,_ ” he said, barely more than an exhale. Barely a sound at all. There was no answer.

Outside of the hollow, the footsteps were drawing closer, shuffling a bit now, as though whoever it was had slowed down to look for something. _To look for them._ Shaw bit down on his lower lip to stifle the tremor that was working its way up the length of his spine, to force himself to focus past the unfamiliar but insistent pull of fear. How long? How many footsteps had he counted so far? He couldn’t remember anymore… Why couldn’t he remember?

He wanted to roll onto his back, turn over and look at where Fairwind should be lying just behind him, if only to reassure himself, but he knew what he would find. Darkness. More of the same all-encompassing nothing that filled the woods around them, lingering like a veil in this forest where sound had no place.

There was a skittering of dirt and debris as the footsteps drew nearer to the hollow, and then a slide and a thump as booted feet hit the ground. Shaw couldn’t see who it was through the dark, but he held his dagger close, and prepared himself for anything.

The toe of a boot caught his shin, and he cursed, loosening his grip on the dagger.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fairwind whispered. “Trying to feel my way back’s not going so well.”

“Fairwind!” Shaw gasped, clutching his shin. He pushed himself up on his other arm and reached out for the unseen shape of the Kul Tiran, nearly panting with relief when his fingers touched the solid weight of Fairwind’s chest. Without thinking, he clutched and pulled Fairwind closer, forcing him onto his knees. “Don’t ever do that again!” he rasped.

“Do what?” Fairwind asked incredulously. “Take a piss? Hey—whoa…” A hand came down on Shaw’s shoulder and he flinched, realizing in the half-heartbeat between seconds that it was still Fairwind. His fingers were still tangled in the man’s coat, anchoring him in place. Keeping him close. “Shaw? You alright, mate?”

It took Fairwind’s other hand cupping the side of his head for Shaw to realize that he was shaking.

“What in the hell has gotten into you?” Fairwind said.

 _I don’t know, but I’m terrified of finding out,_ he wanted to say. He had never been so afraid in his life, not even as a child, when he’d had plenty to fear. But that wasn’t true terror, it was survival. This sudden fear was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Instead of answering, he looked up at Fairwind and said, “We have to leave.”

“Yeah, well, I’m all ears if you’ve any suggestions on that score.” Fairwind’s hands hadn’t left him, and now his thumb was lightly stroking the spot beneath Shaw’s ear, like he was trying to soothe a frightened child. The whole thing lit a spark of rage in Shaw, and he threw Fairwind’s hands from him with a snarl.

“Get off,” he muttered.

“Shaw—”

“Enough. We need to get moving.”

If Fairwind was offended by Shaw’s brusqueness, he gave no sign of it. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to lose the daylight,” he said, chuckling at his own bad joke.

Shaw ignored him. Or rather, he acted as though he was ignoring him. In truth, every sense, every inch of him, every second of awareness was focused on the sounds Fairwind made, his presence, and the shape of him in the darkness as they climbed out of the hollow together. The proof that he wasn’t alone. Shaw kept Fairwind in his line of sight at all times while they walked, and if he could feel his heart start to hammer in his chest whenever the darkness became too thick between them, well, it was only because he felt responsible for bringing the man back alive. Nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to put the notes at the end of the first chapter, rather than the beginning, because I thought it flowed better that way. The quote provided in the summary is an excerpt from the poem _Ghost House_ , by Robert Frost.
> 
> This story was started last year, 3 days before Halloween. I ran out of time and decided to save it for this year. As of right now I don't know how many chapters it will end up being. Additionally, I make no guarantees as to the actual scariness of this story, since it's all relative and these are things that _I_ prefer in my horror. I have no interest in slashers.
> 
> Please be aware that there are elements in later chapters which may be disturbing to some readers, but have not been tagged yet. That's because they're not written. Once I have a better idea of which tags will be most appropriate, I'll add them in as needed.
> 
> Be patient with what may seem like out-of-character behavior, remember this is a scary story.


	2. Chapter 2

Shaw wanted to believe that it was the following day when he finally reached the point of exhaustion, but he had long since lost track of the time. Of days at all, really. It could have been weeks. Months, even. He and Fairwind walked through the woods, no signs of life other than their own breathing, and the occasional glances at one another to ensure that they weren’t suddenly, terrifyingly alone. More than once he’d felt the back of Fairwind’s hand brush his own, and he thought at first that it must have been an accident. When he realized it wasn’t, a part of him was determined to believe that Fairwind was checking in for his own comfort. It wasn’t until he caught a pitying look in the near-darkness that Shaw knew it was for him.

“Flynn,” he huffed, slowing his already labored shuffle through the dead leaves and twigs that littered the forest floor. It was a testament to the depth of his fatigue that he hadn’t bothered to address the man properly. “I can’t,” he said, propping himself against the trunk of a tree. A chill rippled its way down his spine, and he recoiled from the touch of the bark beneath his palm. It felt… wrong.

“We can rest here,” Fairwind said. He began clearing a space on the ground with the flat of his boot. When it was wide enough for both of them, he sat down and gave the dirt a pat.

“I can’t sleep,” Shaw said without thinking. He hadn’t been doing much of that for some time, actually—thinking. Everything was a struggle, everything was a confusing jumble of shadows and uncertainty, and always, always, the vast emptiness of the forest. He knew it wasn’t right. None of it made any sense, but he also knew that he’d had that conversation with himself before. Perhaps many times.

“Why not?” Fairwind asked.

Shaw blinked at him. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he _understand?_ “It isn’t safe,” he said. There was none of the rancor in his answer that he had meant for there to be. Emphasis of any sort seemed beyond him at that point, in fact.

Fairwind put a hand on his shoulder. It felt much too heavy. “I’ll keep you safe,” he said.

No, that… that wasn’t right at all. Shaw had come to these woods to rescue _him_. He had come following a message stained with blood, hoping to find a friend but expecting to bring back a corpse. Deep down, that was always what he had feared, wasn’t it? Flynn Fairwind, his pale, lifeless body crumpled at the base of some lonely tree in the middle of a strange wood, far from the sea where he belonged. Incongruous with the image of windswept chestnut hair and eyes that caught the sun glinting on the water’s surface. Gone. All that life, all that energy, snuffed out while Shaw stood around in Boralus, secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of the man he had done his absolute best—and worst—to forget. A truth he had denied even to himself, but the damned forest seemed determined to wring from his bones nonetheless.

He looked at Fairwind through the darkness that seemed to breathe between them. It was as though the endless night hadn’t affected him at all. And perhaps it hadn’t.

Perhaps there was a reason for that, too.

Shaw sighed. “A short rest,” he said, too tired to argue anymore.

  
He woke alone, lying on the ground. A twig had jammed itself into his cheek while he slept, and he rubbed his skin, trying to ease the sting it left behind. He thought the ground had been cleared the night… or day before, but there was no small clearing made by the sweep of a boot. Nothing but rocks and leaves and bits of broken branch and shed bark.

There was no sign of Fairwind, either.

Shaw sat up and twisted around until he could take in his surroundings, or what there was of them. Nothing but darkness in any direction, only the faint outline of the endless trees, fading into the shadows as they grew deeper and more menacing. Experience told him to listen, to still the wild beat of his own heart and breathe slowly, taking in those details other men might miss in their panic. Something that had been trained out of him early. Forced out. He closed his eyes and focused on sound only.

Nothing.

Not even a breeze to shift the leaves overhead—if there were any at all to be disturbed. He couldn’t see that far, though he looked up anyway.

It was with his eyes skyward, straining to catch a glimpse of the stars he knew must be there, _should_ be there, that Shaw felt the trailing fingers of a cold chill run down his spine. Every hair on his body seemed to stand on end because he knew, he knew someone was there with him.

He brought his chin back down, keeping his movements slow and steady. There was a part of him that hoped it was only Fairwind. That he had once again wandered off to take care of his needs, typically heedless of the potential danger. And as he turned to look over his shoulder, he truly wished that were so.

Someone stood behind him, perhaps ten paces back. Indistinct in the darkness, the lines of their body impossible to discern, unmoving. There was no longer a need to calm his breathing: he wasn’t breathing at all. The trapped air seared his lungs, bursting with the need to escape, but he didn’t dare exhale. Not when he finally managed to tear his eyes away from his watcher.

Well back in the shadows between the trees, so far away they could almost be mistaken for errant wisps of mist, were more figures. Different sizes and shapes, each one vague and difficult to separate from the darkness around them, from each other. His eyes seemed to slide away whenever he tried to focus on them, refusing to see what his mind couldn’t make sense of. And they were all, all moving slowly in the same direction. Moving toward him.

The one closest, the one that had been _watching him_ while he sat there mindlessly straining to find the sky, took a step forward. It lifted a hand, fingers reaching for him across that space that had suddenly become far too small.

 _You can handle this, you’re trained for this,_ a voice insisted. _Don’t just_ sit _there!_

He needed to stand. He needed to move. Now.

Get up. _Get up._

He managed to turn away from the shade creeping ever closer, reaching out to him for some purpose he never wanted to know. But when he tore his eyes away it wasn’t the endless night that greeted him, nor the sight of more uncertain shapes closing on him from the shadows. It was his _own_ face, so close he could feel his breath as it punched its way from his lungs and billowed between them in the cold night air. Unblinking, unbreathing, once-green eyes dark and empty as they stared into his.

And then it moved.

  
Shaw woke with a gasp and hurled himself upright. His fingers were bent into claws, dug deep in the forest floor beneath him. He was sitting in a small, cleared space, and Fairwind was lying beside him, fast asleep.

It had been a dream. A nightmare, actually. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been plagued by those, but it was probably after he had been rescued by the Uncrowned. Something about the forest seemed to invite that unease, and insinuate itself into his thoughts, driving him to distraction and leaving him vulnerable to fear. That was _not_ acceptable. He was better than that, better trained, more in control of himself.

“Fairwind, wake up,” he said, reaching for Fairwind’s shoulder to give it a shake. He heard a breathless snuffle, and then Fairwind sat bolt upright, hands reaching for his weapon. A moment later he realized where he was and who he was with, and he relaxed.

“Could’ve used some more sleep,” he complained, rubbing one eye absently. “I’m exhausted, mate.”

“We don’t have time for a full night’s sleep. We have to keep moving.”

Fairwind scoffed. “Keep moving where, exactly? Look, Shaw, I’ve nothing but the deepest respect for your navigational skills on land, but it’s high time we start calling this what it is: a lost cause. We’re lost, man. Wandering in circles isn’t going to get us anywhere ‘cept more turned around.”

“And just what do you propose we do instead?”

“Stay put! Stay right where we are. Reckon they’re coming for you. Probably searching for you even as we speak.”

Shaw would never have admitted it, but those words unnerved him, sending a cold shiver down his spine. _Coming for you. Searching for you._ The people—the _shapes—_ in his dream had seemed drawn to him, determined to reach him. And then his own face, gaunt and lifeless, staring back at him as though in a twisted mirror. He shuddered again and tried to push the image from his mind.

“We can’t stay here,” he said. “It will be days before anyone comes looking, and who knows what might happen in the meantime.”

“Besides us starving to death? Which, I’ll note, is just as likely to happen if we keep wandering, wasting energy on this tireless march you’ve got us undertaking. You’ve nixed the sleep already, and we’ve no water left between us.”

True, they had no water, but Shaw hadn’t felt thirsty since entering the woods. Nor hungry, for that matter. Fairwind had been complaining of both, and had drained their two canteens dry where Shaw had merely taken a few sips here and there. Only because he knew he must.

In fact, Fairwind had been taking a number of things for himself since they started their slow journey out of the woods. It hadn't stopped with water. “We were supposed to sleep in shifts,” Shaw pointed out, unable to keep the bitter edge from his words. He aimed an accusatory finger at Fairwind’s chest. “You told me you would _stay awake_.”

He had too much dignity to remind Fairwind that he had promised to keep watch for Shaw’s peace of mind. That was more than even his own pride could take.

“If you’re so concerned about our wellbeing,” he said when Fairwind didn’t answer, “perhaps next time you should do your part to help ensure our safety, and _stay awake_.”

Fairwind only watched him levelly, his expression blank, seemingly unconcerned with the reprimand. The very sight of his apathy made Shaw’s blood boil. The sight of _him_. How dare he? What was he doing to get them out of the woods? What had he done but put them both in danger to begin with? All of his complaining, and he hadn’t even apologized for his laziness. For _lying_.

Something in Shaw snapped then. Something that curled hotly and twined itself around his pounding heart as he bellowed, “You were supposed to _stay awake!_ ”


	3. Chapter 3

“I _am_ awake, Shaw!”

Shaw blinked, clearing sleep from his eyes. Fairwind was no longer sitting beside him; he was leaned against the trunk of a long-dead tree, its gnarled husk bent at a low angle. His keen eyes were fixed on Shaw with a worried look.

What the _hell_ had just happened?

“Shaw? Mate?” Fairwind stepped forward, and Shaw instinctively flinched away from his hand. “You alright? I thought you were awake. You were shouting at me about… I don’t know… falling asleep, I think, saying something about how the woods weren’t safe.” He laughed humorlessly. “Not that you need to tell me that.”

“Flynn…” Shaw wrapped an arm around his middle and tried to swallow back the bile that tried to rise in his throat. Who had he been talking to? _What_ had he been— “Do we have any water left?” he asked instead.

Fairwind shook his head. “Ran out last… whatever. Night, I suppose. Not that it makes much difference what we call it. Haven’t seen nor smelt a stream in all this time, either. What’s going on with you?”

There was no way to explain that he’d just held a conversation with the man that he had truly believed to be real, while also apparently sitting up, for all intents and purposes appearing fully awake, and yet somehow asleep. Fairwind would think he’d gone mad. Shaw wasn’t sure he hadn’t. In truth, he wasn’t even certain _this_ conversation was real. “What should we do?” he asked, unconcerned with maintaining some silly illusion of authority anymore. The woods had seen an end to that. He only wanted out, now. “Stay or keep walking?”

“Well, on any other day I’d say we stay put. Any search party worth its salt would have an easier time finding us that way. But this isn’t any other day, is it?” He shook his head. “We should try to find our way out. I know this land, if only a bit, and mostly from the coast. Still. Can’t possibly be that much farther to the tree line. We’ve been walking for ages.”

Different answers to the same question. Shaw suppressed a shudder.

“I dreamt something…” He glanced up; Fairwind seemed genuinely interested in whatever he had to say, watching him with a curiously cocked brow and a look of concern. “Something unnerving,” Shaw muttered, suddenly more self-conscious than he could ever remember being in the past.

“Bound to happen ‘round here. You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Not least of all because he no longer seemed able to separate real from unreal.

“Get some rest, Shaw,” Fairwind said. That strange concern was back. Unusual gravity from a man who, as far as Shaw could tell, never took much of anything seriously.

“Wake me up if I start talking in my sleep again,” Shaw asked quietly. He spared a quick sidelong glance at Fairwind from the corner of his eye. “Please.”

Fairwind gave him a nod, and then settled back against the dead tree with his arms crossed, one ankle hooked over the other. Shaw lay down, folding an arm under his own head to serve as a pillow. Even with his eyes closed he could feel Fairwind’s gaze on him. The worry that seemed so uncharacteristic. Maybe _that_ was the real Flynn Fairwind.

Maybe none of them were.

  
On their (possibly) third day of walking, following another “night” of dreams fraught with silent terror and reaching hands growing ever closer, Shaw decided it was time to come clean.

“I’ve been seeing things,” he said, very quietly, as they walked side by side through the forest.

“What… sort of things?” Fairwind asked far too casually.

Shaw scrubbed a hand over his face. He was so damn tired. “Shapes. People, I think. Like the one I saw the night we found each other.” And the messenger. He still hadn’t told Fairwind about that yet. Wasn’t sure he ever would. “Every time I sleep. And sometimes when I don’t.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Fairwind said.

“You have a gift for understatement.”

“Been told it’s the opposite, actually. But Shaw, those are just nightmares, alright? This place is all wrong. Don’t let it get to you.”

_A little late for that._ But what he said was, “Like you?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Why aren’t you tired?”

Fairwind shrugged. “Can’t say. But the sun hasn’t come up in days, I think it’s safe to say we’re not dealing with an average bit of dark magic. Maybe it’s just affecting us differently.”

Shaw shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Fairwind had been there longer. He’d entered the forest of his own accord hours or possibly even days before Shaw himself. Regardless of the source of the pervasive darkness, it should have had a pronounced effect on him. Shaw had barely been in the woods for three days and he wanted to crawl out of his skin every waking moment. “What’s different about you?” he snapped without meaning to.

“Apart from my generally sunny disposition? Nothing I can think of. I just feel…”

Shaw stopped walking, turning to face Fairwind while he apparently pondered the right word.

Finally, Fairwind shrugged and concluded with, “At ease.”

Ease. That was a state Shaw was no longer certain he could recall. What he wouldn’t give for a real bed, a change of clothes, even just a bit of damned _sunlight_. Funny, given all the years he had spent so keen to remain firmly enfolded within the shadows.

He thought of his argument with Fairwind—or rather, whatever strange scenario his mind had concocted, filling it with odd details that now, only in hindsight, he realized he should have seen for what they truly were. Flynn Fairwind never would have sat motionless, _emotionless_ , while Shaw shouted at him over something as trivial as a nap. And Shaw himself… Well, he was beginning to accept that these bouts of irrationality were well beyond what even extreme fatigue and privation called for. Something was very, very wrong.

He watched Fairwind as he upended one boot and shook out a small pile of dirt and other assorted detritus. Contrary to what he had claimed, there was the faintest hint of darkness beneath his eyes now that Shaw really looked for it. A pinched appearance to him that was as uncharacteristic as his ever-growing concern for Shaw’s well being. He was getting tired, even if he didn’t know it yet.

So, the woods _were_ affecting him, just not nearly as much as they were affecting Shaw. He took a dark sort of satisfaction from that. Then he sat with it for a moment, with his own vicious pleasure, and silently reprimanded himself for being so childish. Fairwind’s slow spiral into the same gloom that seemed to have taken such a firm grip on Shaw’s mind was nothing to be _happy_ about. In fact it likely spelled their doom. And that, more than anything, terrified him. Until that moment he hadn’t considered how much he was relying on Fairwind to keep them going.

“Maybe you should sleep,” he said.

Fairwind looked up and shrugged. “I’m alright. Is this your way of angling for another nap?”

“No. I’m…” Well, he wasn’t _not_ tired, but he wasn’t dead on his feet, either. He paused as a chill came over him at that particular thought. “I can keep going,” he said.

Fairwind seemed skeptical, but he nodded anyway. After slipping his boot back on he stood up and kicked his foot against the ground to settle it out. “Ready?” he asked, holding out a hand.

Shaw looked down. There was Fairwind’s hand, palm up and open, waiting for his. It was… tempting. He wanted to take it, which surprised him more than the offer itself. Wanted nothing more than to reach out and slide his fingers between Fairwind’s, with their thick knuckles and callused pads. He wasn’t sure he had ever felt a desire so powerful before in his life.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he looked away, muttered something about picking up the pace, and started walking into the vast, endless shadows.

  
“I think it’s about half-past two,” Fairwind said, apropos of nothing as far as Shaw could tell.

Shaw lifted his head and looked around, but nothing was different. The night was just as deep and unrelenting, the trees just as tall, mute, and imposing as ever. “Are you just guessing?” he asked incredulously.

“Well, it’s not as though I’ve a clock with me, so… yeah.”

“Don’t guess the time, Fairwind.”

He heard a soft scoff over his shoulder. “Why not?”

The real reason of course was that playing make believe with the time only served to remind Shaw that they were hopelessly lost in an endless void of forest along with untold nebulous, vaguely threatening forms only he could apparently see. And that reminding him it was daylight somewhere, normal somewhere, was akin to cruelty of the sort he never would have attributed to a man like Fairwind. Not least of all because he’d always felt very _safe_ to Shaw, and—

He stopped walking.

Since when had he _ever_ considered Flynn Fairwind _safe?_ The man was reckless, irreverent, and too often completely oblivious. At least, that appeared to be the face he chose to present to the world. But intentional or not, his behavior spoke volumes of his regard for his own personal safety, and in turn the safety of those around him. In fact, in the Zandalari vault Shaw had been forced to divide his attention between the many, many threats surrounding them and the foolhardy pirate dashing through the corridors ahead toward their target.

Not that Fairwind had been in trouble, really. He seemed more than capable of handling almost anything that came his way. And once or twice he’d even seemed to draw attention to traps and other dangers that Shaw had somehow missed. Because he wasn’t completely focused. Because he was watching Fairwind.

Shaw shook his head. No, that was absurd. Flynn Fairwind was as much a liability as he was a convenience, and that was all. He wasn’t reliable. He wasn’t _safe_.

The woods had been silent for countless hours, but now a low murmur seemed to seep in from the spaces between the trees, crawling through the darkness toward Shaw’s ears. He knew that sound: it was the same hissing, chittering noise that had surged and swelled around him until it was almost deafening. Like dry leaves blown by a relentless wind, gathered in the thousands. The millions. He could feel his heart hammering against the wall of his chest, and a cold sweat broke out across his brow. Shaw turned to shout to Fairwind that they needed to hide, and found himself alone.

Alone in a small clearing between the trees, with a sound that only grew louder as he stood frozen in terror.

“No _,_ damn it!” he rasped angrily, gritting his teeth. He covered his ears and shut his eyes tight, willing the sound to stop. Willing Fairwind back beside him, offering an open hand, and whatever small comfort it might provide.

His own hands did little to block the noise, instead only muffling it, and he swore that he could _feel_ the sound against his skin. Like someone shouting so close that it vibrated the air around him. It battered against him from all sides, yet he refused to look. He wouldn’t look. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that if he opened his eyes he would be surrounded by those same unseeable forms, shifting and sliding away from his gaze, and now so close that he couldn’t possibly flee their touch. It took everything he had just to open his mouth and scream.

_“Flynn!”_

Something grabbed him, wrapped him up so tight that the fear that lanced through him felt like ice in his gut. But it blocked out the sound, the sensation of that furious roar trying to force its way inside his skull, and it was _warm_.

“I’ve got you, Shaw. I’ve got you.” The words were whispered in his ear, low and soothing. He could feel the brush of coarse hair against his skin.

The relief that flooded through him was like stepping into the sun. The sound had stopped. Without thinking, Shaw threw his arms around Flynn’s shoulders and clung to him, pressing his face into the warmth of his neck, feeling his pulse as it beat steadily. He was almost delirious with relief.

Maybe that was why he did it. Why he pressed his lips to the skin beneath Flynn’s ear and kissed him. He certainly didn't know.


End file.
